


more beautiful than the cosmos

by ysse_writes



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-09
Updated: 2011-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-23 14:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/251136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ysse_writes/pseuds/ysse_writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Sakura/Ino ficlet originally written for 31_days.<br/>31_days, August 19: At most, flowers</p>
            </blockquote>





	more beautiful than the cosmos

**Author's Note:**

> Dislclaimer: The characters and situations of NARUTO belong to Masashi Kishimoto and Shueisha et al. I claim nothing except insanity and this story.
> 
> Warnings: Character deaths

31_days, August 19: At most, flowers

 

 

There should have been darker memories. Rainy days stuck inside the academy’s claustrophobic classrooms, walking home during a snowfall, stealth training in the pre-dawn fog. Instead, Sakura only remembers blue skies and green grass, meadows of flowers, the odd park bench. Even then, in that ravaged forest, on that moonless night, Ino’s hair had shone gold.

 

Sakura finds her first, something inside her telling her where to look. The same voice tells her she’s in time, even if she doesn’t quite know for what.

“So unglamorous,” Ino complains, when she sees Sakura, her tone acerbic but her voice feeble. “I was supposed to die gloriously in the midst of battle, on an impossible mission. No one ever said anything about herds of rampaging wild boars.” Despite her broken body she manages a glare upwards. “You, I suppose, will die in bed. Old and wrinkled and surrounded by sniveling great-grandchildren.” Her laugh ends in a cough of blood. “I suppose that’s _some_ consolation.”

They'd found Shikamaru first, long dead, his cunning and _kage mane no jutsu_ useless against the wave of tusks and hooves. Ino had fared little better. Surprisingly, it had been Chouji and his _nikudan sensha_ who had managed to break through, to make it to the village to warn them all. No one expects him to survive the night.

They'd just been out on a picnic, celebrating a successful mission. It wasn't supposed to end this way.

“Oh, please,” says Sakura, striving to keep her voice light. “You’ll be old and wrinkled ages before I am. Blondes age faster, everyone knows that.” She gently pushes aside the locks that had grown back, longer than before that fateful day that they battled during the Chunin exams. **_Did you know? Sasuke-kun likes long hair_**. “And now you’ll be hailed a hero and everyone will praise you. What a cheap trick to get Sasuke-kun’s attention.”

“Sasuke…” Ino’s face changes, growing softer, her eyes growing fondly distant, and Sakura is hit with a strange twinge in the middle of her chest, separate from the ache of impending loss that she is denying with all her strength. “Ne, Sakura-chan, shall I tell you a secret? About Sasuke-kun?”

 **  
_Ino, you like Sasuke-kun, don’t you?_   
**

"I like Sasuke-kun,” Ino continues, softly, dreamily.

“That’s no secret,” Sakura interjects, sharply, willing Ino to look at her, willing her to fight. Ino wasn’t fighting, and that scared her more than anything. “You’ve always liked him. Everyone in Konoha knows that.”

Ino smiles. Sakura is well acquainted with that smile, wise and mysterious. As a child she’d thrived on it, knowing it would feed her, make her stronger. When she got older it had made her livid, knowing Ino was still ahead of her in all the ways that mattered. Now she thinks it is the most beautiful, most terrible thing in the world.

“Yes, I’ve always liked Sasuke-kun,” she agrees, her eyes still far away. “But never more than I liked you.”

Sakura grows still. Suddenly, she understands everything. **_From now on we are rivals._**

 **  
_I can’t lose to you anymore._   
**

“I told you, didn’t I? That when your time came—” She coughs again, wracking coughs, but despite their violence it is only her head that moves.

Sakura ignores everything that screams inside her, all her medical training, and helps Ino sit up before she chokes on her own blood. Ino is unable to move her arms, but her head rests naturally on Sakura’s shoulder. Sakura feels the flutter of Ino’s eyelashes against her neck, her eyes falling shut. “Ino, I—”

“I was right,” Ino murmurs, the sound very much like a sigh.

It is the last sound she makes.

 

“Ne, Sakura-chan.”

Sakura opens her eyes to find blue eyes peering down at her. Naruto’s eyes are a darker blue, his hair a brighter yellow, but for a moment, the similarity is enough to startle her.

“You’re here again,” he says, nodding respectfully at the grave marker before sitting beside her on the grass. “Not that I blame you,” he continues. He plucks a flower from the riot of blossoms surrounding them, twirling it around a few times before putting it in his pocket, bright ginger petals matching his jacket exactly. “It’s very beautiful here.”

“Yes,” Sakura agrees, smiling up at the sky. “Ino-chan always had a way with flowers.”

 

 

 

©JCSA/2005


End file.
